Mia pees 3-5 times in the afternoons while I'm at work. I come in at 11:45 and let them out until about 12:10-12:15 then get home at 5:30-6 depending on traffic. Before I come in for lunch she is fine and there's never any potty on the potty pad. After I get home from work there's usually 3 or 4 spots of pee.

Last night I went to a basketball game and was gone from 6:30-10 pm and she peed once. Pretty much any time other than the morning stretch on workdays that I am gone more than an hour or two, she pees on the pad.

Last night she held it from 12 am to 10:30 am (I did not mean to sleep in that late).

I started putting out the potty pad because I usually had to work through lunch on mondays to get all our meeting stuff done in time for our 1 pm meeting. But they've moved that meeting stuff to be due on thursday which has made my life easier. She couldn't hold it for a full work day so I put down a potty pad for those days so she wouldn't make a mess.

I wonder if it is habit or a health thing? It seems excessive that from 12:15-5:30 she would pee 3 or 4 times. Doesn't it? But other times of the day/night she will hold it just fine. Or I wonder if it is just because she knows the pad is available so she uses it as needed? I don't mind her using it (that's what it's there for) but I'm concerned about the frequency.

If it were a UTI or bladder infection I would expect to see her urinating frequently at all times. She might be drinking water more often in the afternoon so having to pee more. Maybe they sleep during the day and then play more in the afternoon so have to pee more. There's a lot of factors that it could be.

How does her urine look? Bright bright yellow? Any red tinge to it? Or is it clear?

It's pretty yellow but not like bright bright yellow. It looks fairly normal in color to me. No red at all.

I have thought that maybe they sleep all morning, like they do on the weekends. Then maybe they're up and around in the afternoon. Generally on the weekends she doesn't DO that much until around 4 (unless I take her somewhere of course) even if I'm off work. She just sleeps or looks out the window or chews something. But I do let them out every 1-2 hours on my days off.

I've moved them into the kitchen in the past two weeks. They've had full run of the kitchen for a few days and it's gone good.

I would also vote no for a UTI, but to be totally sure you should get her checked out. Typical signs are frequent urination of small amounts of urine... all times of day and night (though I think with adult dogs overnight is often better... just thinking about myself when I've had UTIs... if I woke up in the middle of the night I'd definitely feel the urgency, but I generally didn't wake up BECAUSE OF the urgency). That said, I've had owners come in and complain of urinary signs that don't totally fit with a UTI but during the work up we do get results on the urinalysis that are certainly questionable for a mild UTI... so we'll treat and often times that resolves things. A UTI is generally so simple to treat that it's silly to not rule it out... just in case.